Did they go naked?

Checkered patterns and pants, that's probably what everyone associates with "garment of the Celts". After all, we have all read our Asterix.

And it's also true, pants were something that distinguished the Celts from the Romans and that the Romans almost seemed to make a little fun of. At least until the Romans ventured into more northerly climates and realized that pants weren't such a stupid idea....

And the checks are also quite correct, as we know from fabric finds (more fabric tidbit finds). But there are also reports of stripes, but especially that the Celts loved it colorful.

"Colorful" at that time was of course still differently "colorful" than today. Pink, neon yellow or other artificial colors did not exist, only what nature offered by means of plants - and there are more natural colors possible than we might expect! The color palette ranged from yellow to green, red and blue in all shades and mixtures. Wool came naturally in various white-brown-black tones, but was also dyed just like plant material.

Yellow, for example, was produced by dyeing with dyer's chamomile, or with dyer's woof (I love that name! "This is woof." - "You sure? Looks like a plant to me, not like a dog...").

Red by means of madder (also such a wonderful word), green still the easiest, because there are many green-dyeing plants (who ever had grass stains in his white pants ...), among them also the anyway much-loved nettle.

Blue could not be dyed so easily, for this woad had to be reduced in an alkaline solution (mostly urine), so that the dye became soluble. The inlaid garment or fiber first became green and only after oxidation in the air acquired its blue color.

The most precious color (for a long, long time) was purple, which was obtained from the purple snail. For the Romans, this color was forbidden to the common people (and they could not afford it anyway). In ancient Rome, a purple stripe trim was reserved for senators, and later emperors wore capes of this color. For 1 gram of purple dye, 12,000 snails had to be killed, pickled in salt and simmered. (The discovery of purple is a nice legend about the hero Heracles. He chased a nymph and when his dog bit into a snail and his lips turned purple, the nymph declared that she would not receive Heracles again until he provided her with a dress of that color. The power of women ...)

So they were colorful and dressed in pants, the Celts. Braccae was the name of the pants, as we have already heard in the post about the Celtic language. The material was natural - wool or linen, nettle cloth or other plant fibers.

And to make such a fabric alone ... There must first be sheep sheared, the fleece washed (always fascinating how heavy such a sheep fleece becomes when it is wet ...), carded and spun. Back then not yet on the efficient spinning wheel, but with the hand spindle. Then you have yarn ... In the case of plants, e.g. linen, the harvested plant had to be dried, then roasted (put in dew or water), then the inner fibers had to be worked out - which was done very laboriously in several work steps --, then also spun; here too then the result: yarn ...

These yarns were then woven, either as board weaving into narrow bands (belts, hair bands, etc), or on a weight loom into wide lengths of cloth. I once strung a weight loom for the Celtic Museum at the Kulm, with a very coarse material (which was requested by the museum), and even that was a very tedious job. No wonder, then, that it was unusual to own a lot of garments, or that only people of high standing could afford a rich wardrobe. And the wealth of the owner also determined how elaborately the fabric and the garment were decorated - there were gold interwoven borders, fur trim, or at the other end simply coarsely woven fabric ...

With the pants the Celtic man wore a tunic, cut from straight pieces (who will cut away laboriously woven fabric? Rather make fashion straight), sleeveless, short-sleeved or long-sleeved. In many books you can find the term tunic for this, because it is so found in Roman writings. Which is logical, because the Romans knew this form of outerwear from their own homeland. The Celtic term is rendered as camisia. In addition, a cloak - be it a straight piece of cloth, held with a fibula (a kind of elaborate safety pin), be it a cucullus (a kind of cloak with a hood). And on the feet, shoes, which could easily be made from a piece of leather (but didn't last very long for that, since the sole was just a layer of leather).

Women wore not much else - their camisia was ankle-length and served as an undergarment, over it two straight pieces of fabric held at the shoulders with fibulas and at the waist with a belt - peblos it was called - and already woman was ready to go out.

On the head, as can be seen on some reliefs, woman often wore the so-called Noric hood, the very exact construction of which is quite a subject for discussion (were the bulges on the side made of cloth or do the bulges on the reliefs represent the woman's hair?). Men are often seen - besides the helmets of the warriors - wearing large brimmed hats (the sombrero of Noricum...) or, this is also proven by finds, small conical hats made of leather or birch bark.

And in addition, who could afford it, jewelry ... much jewelry. The Celts loved jewelry, which is why I will devote a separate post to it.

The Celts also knew a form of knitting. The oldest find of a needle binding work piece in Germany is from the Middle Stone Age. Needle binding is still practiced in Scandinavia today and from there it has also "infected" some handworkers around the world. So we can assume that the Celts knew something like socks, gloves or hoods for cold weather.

Leather garments, on the other hand, leather tunics or leather dresses, as we often find them in films about the era or at events, were rather the exception, according to an archaeologist friend of mine. Leather is impractical because it requires a lot of care, especially as soon as it gets wet and thus stiff. And making leather is time-consuming and - despite the many steps needed to make one sheet of fabric - much more complicated than making wool or hemp. The hides must be tanned (either vegetabile, which takes about 6 weeks, or with brain - typical ingenious achievement of nature: the brain of the animal is usually exactly enough to tan its skin), then the leather needs to be made supple ... Of course, the animal skin was used, for example, as "window glass", but most likely not to the extent that so-called historical films would have us believe.

Wool and plant fibers, that was the main focus.

From my own experience (garments in my time as an employee of a Celtic village museum) I can say, it was a very comfortable clothing. No comparison to dresses with corsets or even modern "business costumes".

And to answer the title question: yes, they did go naked, sometimes. Fierce warriors in battle did, to prove their courage. They bathed in rivers and lakes, men and women together. But they did love their pretty and colorful clothes!